RED DEER & ROCKY MOUNTAINS
- Nicole Bowman
- Aug 17, 2025
- 8 min read
Updated: Apr 3
This was our first real adventure. Red Deer to the Rocky Mountains.
A mix of long drives, early mornings, and chasing views that didn't even feel real.
We were figuring it out as we go - and that was the point!
August 7-17, 2025
Welcome to our Spartan Red Deer Weekend & Rocky Mountain Adventure.
This trip started as a Spartan Race weekend and turned into an epic summer vacation!
Things we knew:
We wanted to make the most of this trip.
We actually started making plans before we were even a couple (we need 2 beds.. ha!)
We wanted to head to Red Deer for the Spartan National Series Sprint and Super events.
We wanted to do some mountain hikes before the summer was over.
The plan was hatching to incorporate both.
So, we decided to fly into Calgary on a Thursday, rent an RV from Road Surfer, head to Red Deer for the Spartan events on Saturday & Sunday, then head over to the Rockies for some hiking adventures.
We affectionately called our RV “Frankie” who became our mobile base camp. It was great having our home on wheels, fully stocked with food and coffee, to keep the adventure level high.
Our first night was spent in a Walmart parking lot after stocking up on the supplies we needed.
Heard a knock on the door at 6am the next morning and were promptly invited to leave the property…apparently not allowed to stay overnight at THAT Walmart.
Kinda ruined our plans to do a workout on our “front” lawn!
Off to Red Deer!
We used a service called Park4Night to guide us to an area that was more RV friendly in Red Deer.
We had our dinner at the recommended site - Bower Park - and eventually walked over to check out the Spartan venue pick up site (Westerner).
It didn't take long to decide to get Frankie and park here so we could just walk to the shuttle after our breakfast. Worked great until we got kicked out of that parking lot on the second day.
But…we did not have to go far…right around the corner, some kinda rodeo was going on - we parked among the horse trailers and RVs there…no one minded. And, there were showers close by…bonus!
That Saturday and Sunday we banged out the Elite Super and Sprint races… that Heritage Ranch course runs flat and fast. Good times posted by both of us.
After the Sunday race we did laundry, ate lunch at the Chive & Cilantro and then hit the road.
We headed to Jasper and parked at the Toe of the Athabaskan Ice Field where we crashed for the night. It was wonderful to wake up to this as our backdrop on Monday morning.
But of course, on our morning walk around the area…what did we find??? A Starbucks that just happened to be opening as we arrived.
And I thought we were going to be away from the trappings of regular society!
The day unfolded with a drive to Honeymoon lake which was unplanned and proved to be quite beautiful. Great detour!
Then on to Lower Sunwapta Falls followed by a decent hike along Wilcox pass. We were expecting to find Tanglewood Falls along this path, but it was elusive.
Next stop was Mystaya Canayon where we dipped our toes in the cool water there. It was there that we unravelled the mystery of the light blue water colour - Rock Flour! The fine powder being ground from the rocks by the fast flowing water reflects certain light waves, leaving the colour to be a very light blue hue.
We made our way to Peyto Lake accomplishing our goal of watching the sunset…it was wonderful as the sun slinked down the face of the mountains surrounding the lake.
Yet, our adventure on this long Monday was not over.
We decided to put some more hiking KMs on and trekked to the Bow Lake Summit where we laid on some glacial ice and found PeyBow along the way (he is a piece of the Rockies that kept mysteriously following us after my many attempts to leave him behind. He also now lives in our home).
Our plan was to park Frankie at Bow Lake Lodge and sleep there for the night but soon discovered it was not RV friendly. So, Frankie took us to an ominously named “Mosquito Lake”, where ironically we did not see 1 mosquito, which I was quite happy about.
What a looooong Monday…but wow, we covered a lot of ground!
LAKE LOUISE
After our ritual eggs, toast & coffee on Tuesday, we set our sights for Lake Louise.
We lucked out getting the last RV parking spot as we arrived. Total fluke as we came to realize. The place was overrun with tourist types so we took a few pics and high tailed it for the trails.
Lake Louise trail was highly trafficked but thinned out as we climbed to the Plains of Six Glaciers. Wonderful landscape, narrow knife edge trails along some of the ridges which essentially ended when we decided to stop scrambling up the unsafe scree.
We crab crawled a bit of the descent and moved on to an unexpected climb of “Big Beehive”.
There were several approaches to tackle this appropriately named outcropping which did look like a big beehive. I think we took the longer approach which seemed to go on forever and had some pretty intense elevation changes.
We did not see too many people on this path.
We summited Big Beehive and were rewarded with a fantastic bird’s eye view of the Lake Louise district.
The descent also proved entertaining and we took a few breathers at Lake Angus to dip our toes in the water and Mirror Lake to catch the reflection of Big Beehive in its still waters.
Invigorated, Nicole & I looked at each other and went into “Flow Mode”.
The remainder of the descent had us bombing at break neck speed, dodging and darting around the growing number of fellow explorers on the trail.
It was pure heaven!
We were hearing things like “There they go - Mutants!” and several “Crazy” comments.
Our reward was to strip down to our shorts and dip our toes in Lake Louse as we cooled off in the ice blue waters.
Our evening park/eat/sleep plan did not go as envisioned.
We were going to stay at the Lake Louise main RV Camp site, but, because 2025 Parks Canada had a Free Camping Promotion for 2025, the site was full.
So, we ventured down the highway a bit to where there was a Lake Louise “Overflow” parking lot and that suited our purposes just fine.
One thing about plans in the Rockies with an RV; they can change on a dime.
Our Wednesday plan was to head back to the lucky parking spot in Lake Louise and hike up to the Giant Steps water fall, but the weather and a road closure required us to pivot.
After much deliberation while parked in a strip mall parking lot, and a friendly cop reminding us RVs weren’t supposed to be there, we decided to make our way to Radium Hot Springs.
What a great oasis for us as we relaxed in the hot spring fed pools located in this tiny tourist town. We had been joking earlier that we had not seen any significant wildlife so far, and lo and behold there were mountain goats “spying” on us humans from a nearby embankment while they munched on some foliage. Cool to see them.
The facility had nice showers and we took advantage of the opportunity to get a layer of trail dust and sweat from our hair & bodies.
Upon leaving the town, we realized that Frankie was really thirsty as he guzzled down $300 of gas!!
Our next overnight stop was Marble Canyon Campsite, but we just had to stop and check out a curious natural feature where pools formed into the shape of “Paint Pots”.
A short hike from a nearby parking lot was rewarded with iron-rich mineral hot springs that gave off the appearance of yellow, green and orange paint pots. Pretty cool indeed.
We could not linger long here as we needed to get to the (free) Marble Canyon Campsite where we cooked some salmon on an open fire, cleaned up and jumped into bed early as we had a big Thursday ahead of us.
FLOE LAKE - 0215hrs the alarm woke us up. We needed to get to the Floe Lake trailhead to start our 10.5K hike.
Our goal was to get to the lake to watch the sunrise, so we had about 4hrs to cover the terrain & elevation…in the dark! We started with our head lamps turned on but turned them out almost immediately as the sky was lit up by the moon.
With bear spray in hand, we were making good time and stopped frequently to take in the awesome spectacle this night hike was presenting: Dark silhouettes of fire scarred trees; Shooting Stars; Babbling Mountain Torrents streaming in the moonlight. It was breathtaking.
As we ascended, we could feel the temperature dropping and we were soaked from the heavy dew that was on the knee high brush and grass we had to meander through.
We reached the lake with time to spare…too much time in fact. Our body temps decreased drastically as we just stood there waiting for the fireball to reflect off the mountains signalling its arrival.
We ended up eating some chocolate granola while in our holding pattern.
I had to feed Nicole as her hands had stopped functioning. With a bit of energy returning, we decided not to wait for the full sunrise and headed back to the trail to start the trek back to Frankie.
By now the sun had popped up and was spilling its warmth over us warming us up. After a couple frisky moments, we were fully warmed up and continued down the mountainside waving to some of the early morning hikers who likely wondered why we were heading down the mountain so early with little to no gear.
We concluded our Epic Hike by pigging out on pretty much everything we had to eat in the RV, then headed to our next stop - Banff.
Surprisingly, we were not too tired to bang off a hike at Silverton Falls and check out the upper falls along the way.
Another parking lot dinner followed by a walk to Cows Banff for a couple scoops.
After happy bellies, we drove to Canmore where Park4Night guided us to a strange random parking area close to the highway for our much deserved rest.
Our Friday in Canmore was our last hiking day, with Saturday reserved for the trek back to Calgary, a canoe paddle on Glenmore Reservoir and prepped Frankie for return and then chilled in our (strange) AirBnB. Nicole is never allowed to book them again!
The hike up Lady MacDonald while in Canmore was another pleasant surprise; We were surprised by the distance & difficulty as there was a pretty sharp & steady incline for the 5K trail.
Although I suppose we weren’t looking too bad as passersby were commenting on us being Mountain Goats.
The summit provided a nice view of Canmore and we were swept by the wind while taking it in. The switchbacks on the descent were nice and allowed for a pretty quick one.
Upon returning to the parking spot, Frankie instinctively found us a wonderful local ice cream shop where we enjoyed another couple of scoops.
Our last sight to see near Canmore was the Three “Disappointing” Sisters.
I am sure they are majestic in their own right, but the trail to the small lake where you could view them from afar was super short, flat, and smelled soooo bad, hence the disappointment.
Final Thoughts
Overall, we had an appropriate mix of competition, adventure and relaxation that made this one of our favourite challenges in 2025.
With a bit of up front planning, and our ability to pivot and enjoy spontaneous opportunities as they arose, it forged great bonds in our early relationship days.
Good times!
©️2026 Adventure Aweights
written by: Mike McDonald · designed & edited by: Nicole Bowman
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